MY HAPPY SHIELD

For a while I was pretty open about a lot of things but now I worry that I'm going to typecast myself as The Girl Who Cries About Everything, a role I played too long throughout school.

•

I have amassed a decent number of followers and while lovely, it's also a bit terrifying.

•

So when I feel the need to write a sad or anxious list - or I do, in fact, write a sad or anxious list - I have started to rethink.

•

I have started to get caught up again in the idea that if it isn't positive, it doesn't matter. It isn't worth contributing.

•

Which is so fucking stupid, and yet it still has me guarding my emotions.

•

The less pretty ones.

•

Having an audience should mean I use such a platform to educate about depression and anxiety and what I've been going through for the past year... or ten.

•

I'm still so intimidated.

•

And scared that you all will leave me because I'm not happy.

•

Because you wouldn't be the first or the last.

•

Today is a Bad Day and I wrote a list about that and promptly deleted it, because I didn't want my followers to feel uncomfortable.

•

Rationally, I know, this isn't FB where the BE POSITIVE memes tend to reign over the FEEL YOUR FUCKING FEELINGS ones.

•

Logically, I know you are the kindest people I've met on any form of social media.

•

But ration and logic have never really been my best friends.

•

Where to go from here, I really don't know.

•

I want to be open and honest.

•

I don't want to hide behind my happy shield.

•

Pretending doesn't help me or others.

•

So I guess I'll just say this: today was a bad day, and so was yesterday. The popular thing to believe is that tomorrow will be kinder. That it's a new day and every moment is a chance to start over.

•

But honestly I don't believe that. I've felt trapped for weeks, months, maybe years in the promise of things getting better. Of me getting better. I don't know if I will in the timeline everyone's hoping for. Expecting.